The scenes I create, whether still or moving, function as fragments of a larger story that comes together when encountering the project as a whole. Yet even then, it can rarely be read clearly; it suggests rather than assures, offering hints while remaining open to multiple interpretations. Image and sound are another form of language. They can reveal information, but also conceal and confuse. Symbols often carry multiple meanings depending on the context. In my work, the story is told through subtle details and gestures, and often, a different layer of meaning is revealed upon a second glance or depending on who is looking. Things are often not exactly as they seem at first sight, and I like to highlight these contrasts.

It is definitely so. I work in a topic-based manner, but often the same or similar themes develop through multiple projects. What remains consistent throughout my practice is a reliance on research and preparation. As I construct highly staged environments, IRL or digitally, the majority of the work goes into thinking and setting the stage. This involves finding the right place, deciding who can impersonate a character, determining which tools to use for capturing the image, and the perspective or mood we want to create. The theatrical nature of my practice can perhaps be seen most clearly in the thread that connects my works across different mediums - its visual language. Mainly recognised for its reduced composition and coloring, all the aspects of the image are used conceptually, as signifiers, tools for the narrative development. The reduction allows me to spotlight what I want the viewer to pay attention to, somewhat like the way things appear inside a memory or a dream. This is precisely the state I am trying to channel: between being present and drifting. It is like seeing into someone else’s imagination, or even into one's own.

Growing up in Slovakia in the 1990s, I never thought that being an artist could be an actual job or career option. My parents came from a regime and a generation in which you need to separate dreams from reality rather quickly and start to work in an office or a factory. There was creativity, but it was a hobby, not something to be taken seriously. I saw sculptures in churches and public spaces, and although I perceived them only subconsciously at the time, I can now see in retrospect how much they influenced my earliest works. I was deeply drawn to imagination and storytelling - things that remained the basis of my practice, even before I understood that what I was doing could be called art. Later, I learned more about art history and applied to universities, while actively pursuing photography as both a source of income and a personal endeavor. Yet even after being accepted to the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Angewandte), I did not get a sense of belonging and mainly felt like an imposter. Even today, calling myself an “artist” can make me question whether I can really do so, if I can ever belong in this world, and if I can afford it. As my worldview widened, however, I realised that this kind of questioning is quite common. Many of us arrive at art as outsiders and occasionally continue to feel so even when making has become a full-time occupation. Currently, I’m trying to place less emphasis on definitions and focus more on the work itself. To be honest, it helps:)

Both worlds have taught me different things, which I try to apply throughout my entire practice. Working with clients, mostly institutions, publications, and brands, has taught me how to collaborate, lead a team, and recognise when to make compromises. These projects usually have different budgets than my personal work, and they are the result of many people contributing, with each part delegated to a particular person or group. Communication is key, as well as reliability and professionalism. Sometimes it is necessary to put aside your ego, or to work with people who are unable to do so themselves. At times, your work ethic is shaped precisely by those behaviours that you wish to avoid in the future. When every second counts, you need to listen to each other, make space for everyone’s creativity, remain calm when time is running out, and ultimately deliver on deadline. Having structure is essential. I apply this to my personal projects as well, even though the team is much smaller and everyone takes on several tasks and roles. The structure does not need to be followed rigidly and, in the best cases, the work grows beyond what was expected, but it is always there to fall back on.

On the other hand, I bring the conceptual approach of art-making into commissioned work. I do not simply execute prescribed ideas. Instead, I develop the scene myself or in conversation with the client and the team. The results often become part of public space and can reach a wide range of people who encounter the image mostly unintentionally - walking through a city, waiting for a train, or browsing through a magazine. This demands encoding the message wisely and precisely, which I consider both a great opportunity and a responsibility. It comes back to communication, not only in the process but also through the outcome.

What you leave unanswered opens up space for imagination and leads to further questioning. In SimulacRaum, my only non-figurative photographic project, human presence is shown only through the traces of what has been left behind. These spaces are fascinating and beautiful, yet there is also a sense of doom, a strange artifice that defines them. Is it good or bad? I present the issue rather than decide, allowing everyone to interpret it in their own way, to see themselves in the work, and to think.

One of the most notable forms of reduction in my work is the absence of the face in several projects. The reason is simple: an anonymous character cannot be identified with a specific person, or even necessarily as a person at all. Instead, it can stand for a feeling, a state of mind that we all experience from time to time, or a collective body that encompasses us. In projects such as Artificial Tears and Second Virgin, which deal with the human-machine dichotomy and objectification, the absence of the face adds to the ambiguity and raises questions about what we perceive as a person, an object, or a tool, and what causes that shift in perspective.

On the other hand, images that are not literal and circulate freely can be easily misinterpreted. This is certainly not desirable, but it is part of human nature and, technically, unavoidable. This is where I try to introduce more clues through the title, material decisions, accompanying text, and, most often, by creating moving-image work that takes the viewer further into the intended narrative, suggesting or perhaps even compelling them to consider it.

Yes, my scenes are constructed, but they are not created in a vacuum. In the research, which precedes every project, I dive into the process of reading, observing, and searching for anything connected to the topic. Sometimes I also conduct surveys, particularly when I'm dealing with a theme that is not researched much or when I need a more personal perspective.

The final scenes do not document or describe events; they interpret them. Accuracy is rarely the point. Instead, I am interested in conveying what it feels like to be in a particular situation or in drawing attention to what we need to notice before the issue at hand develops further. My images and films often portray the problem, but the solution exists in reality, in the action that the work aims to point to.

It is interesting because they unfold in different times and under different systems, totalitarianism and consumer capitalism, yet they bear quite a few similarities. This was one of the findings of one of my first projects, Asymptote, created together with Adam Csoka Keller in our country of origin, Slovakia, a post-Soviet satellite country (formerly Czechoslovakia). Initially, we became interested in the architecture of this era, its monumentality and repetitive patterns, but very soon we began to see strong similarities between its physical structures and its political ideology, particularly in the way it sought to shape the individual within the system. In this process of uncovering our own collective past, we could not ignore its traces in the present, both as a heritage of the former regime and through its similarities to the current status quo. The first obvious parallel is in surveillance mechanisms. Closely related to that are paranoia and self-policing, although today we experience many of these aspects digitally. Another very visible element of the project is the uniformity of the characters. Their identical clothes, haircuts, and styles all closely resemble photographs from the period, yet are deliberately exaggerated. Today, we experience almost the opposite situation: there is no shortage of choice, but rather an overwhelming abundance of it. Yet people still often want to resemble someone else, copying their style or even physical features. In the end, every era has its norm, and every norm turns difference into something that appears as an anomaly.

Firstly, it made me realise that this instinct came very naturally, as if it were deeply embedded in me. This led me to begin researching female machine characters in literature and cinema, where I discovered that this notion has been widely established and is now being actively reinforced through technological development. While working on the project, I became particularly interested in home voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa and how these early AI tools were coded as female and programmed to respond in stereotypical ways. Recognising this led me to create a VR experience in which viewers enter the photographs. Two-dimensional images are reconstructed as virtual spaces where the character speaks, acts, and moves, raising some of the central questions of the project. It was a no-budget project that we created in less than a week, with a team of three (Joris Demnard, Arielle Esther, and myself) working in our free time, so the interaction is limited. Nevertheless, it was very important for me to give the character a voice and allow her to confront the viewers, transforming them from observers into the observed during the experience.

It was precisely at this time that I started to discover the limits of my medium. What I needed was to widen my tools of expression, but I could not see this clearly because I did not know otherwise. I simply knew that something was not right. What had once brought me joy and excitement started to feel like a prison, and every time I was labelled as a photographer, I felt a strange sense of defeat. I definitely had thoughts of quitting, but photography was my income, my security, and the position I had spent years building. So I decided to stick with it while waiting for a change that felt both frightening and inevitable. Interestingly, it was during this period that I produced some of my most acclaimed works. The feeling of alienation and not belonging materialised in Artificial Tears, and a few months later, I received the opportunity I had been waiting for internally. Colin and Farah from studio LABOUR, who later became close friends and collaborators, asked me to create a one-hour visual performance for their sound piece Next Time, Die Consciously on the main stage of Atonal. It was a great opportunity, especially considering that I had no previous experience making time-based work. They placed their complete trust in me at a moment when I had very little confidence in myself, which gave me the courage to try something new and experiment. From then on, every time I had the option to exhibit, I began creating a new piece: a VR experience, a 3D film collaboration, a performance. With this shift, or rather expansion, I also rediscovered my interest in photography, not as a box that defines me, but as a foundation and medium that informs my other practices. I found myself in another kind of crisis recently, this time more related to the medium through which the work is presented, and I have taken a significant break from exhibiting over the past few months. During this time, I have been thinking and preparing for yet another shift in my practice, and I am curious to see where it will take me this time.

As I was an absolute beginner, it felt like discovering a new language and all of its possibilities. Suddenly, there were so many tools that could be used in service of the narrative. The scene could move and speak, and different rooms could be made to sound a certain way. The senses could support one another or, on the contrary, clash and contradict.

It is almost impossible to choose what has affected me most profoundly. In the virtual world, it could be the sense of immersion and the ability to create a fully symbolic world. In real-life cinematic work, judging from my very recent experience, it is an understanding of how perception can be shaped through the continuity of scenes and movements. In photography, you need to communicate your message, or at least part of it, through a single frame. That has its own magic, but it is more difficult to achieve the complexity that opens up through durational work. Right now, I am working on the first video work that I am filming and editing entirely by myself, and I'm really enjoying the process of once again trying something new.

This was quite interesting, as Æther was the first project in which my body appeared on screen, even if digitally. There is a strong autobiographical layer in many of the projects, as their characters respond to my inner states, but having Eve modelled after me, and looking, let’s say, similar to me, was an entirely new experience. The project currently consists of two chapters, O and I, created together with Samson G Balfour Smith. Chapter O deals with a retranslation of the Genesis story, so having Eve retell the story in her own right obviously carries symbolic meaning. At the time, I was going through my own process of unplugging from the construct that had held me captive, and making Æther felt almost like living through that experience. Eve appeared in my dreams, and many of them actually found their way into the film.

As always, I wrote the text of the piece, which is literally Eve’s voice, and somehow I identify with the words much more than with the voice itself or her physical form. It was never intended for the character to represent me literally, and she does not. Eve is much less specific. But because we needed a voice, a body, and movement, it made sense to use someone who was always there and available. In my current project, Second Virgin, I am also performing a few first-person actions myself. The decision to do so was also a practical one, but trying it brought yet another realisation. This shift from an outside view to an inside one is an important change that I am exploring now, both technically and conceptually.

I have noticed that the topics I explored in Artificial Tears have not disappeared. Quite the contrary, they have developed further and gained an even greater sense of urgency. The rapid advancement of AI and robotics compelled me to return to this theme six years after the completion of the previous project (finished in 2019). The difference I immediately noticed, and wanted to focus on, was the body. Even the most disembodied agents are often accompanied by visualisations rooted in sexism and objectification and are, once again, predominantly “female.” The servility of AI voices goes further, extending into absolute submission simulated on an emotional level. Contemporary culture is full of stories and examples of sycophantic romance gone wrong, as we can see in the current horror hit Obsession. These stories resonate because they are already unfolding around us.

In my research, I explore the history of objectification, the figures of the doll, the effigy, and the double, as well as the Madonna-Mistress dichotomy, which finds yet another manifestation in this context. This has led me to the realisation that, just as artificial intelligence learns and operates according to the data and patterns embedded within it, human perception and cognition are shaped through socialisation, and similar patterns are encoded within our own minds. While Artificial Tears points to the problem, Second Virgin attempts to dissect and dismantle the core: its actual social body.

I’m currently inspired by the work of Louise Bourgeois, Ana Mendieta, Marina Abramović, Selma Selman, Anna Uddenberg, and Tracey Emin (I’m mentioning just a few names; the list is much longer and constantly expanding). What connects their, in many ways, different practices is an interest in the body and in widening its boundaries. Beyond that, their courage gives me hope that art can become part of the social landscape, influence the zeitgeist, and even shape it. There is a shared bravery in putting oneself out there to make work for and to challenge a world that has, for too long, placed women and marginalised people in the role of objects. I’m inspired by those who decide to take up space while also making space for others; those who question forms and their own position within them. In their work, they alchemise and transform spaces, memories, landscapes, objects, emotions, and bodies, questioning ideas of value, normality, and identity. These explorations are very close to my current practice, and I draw a lot from their work.

I’m mainly listening to spoken word, like artist interviews and audiobooks on themes that I’m currently researching. Related to the previous question, I’ve recently been listening to interviews and talks with Tracey Emin, which have inspired and touched me on quite a personal level. She opens up about many things that have traditionally been mystified or kept hidden, including struggles and vulnerabilities. These are precisely the subjects that societal pressure tries to make us ashamed of: the ageing female body, illness, failure, the need for hope, and the pain of love. But by speaking about them, through her art as well as verbally, it almost feels as if the spell of shame is broken, and they appear simply as what they are - profoundly human. Listening to her now, and to Marina Abramović’s autobiography, has made me realise how absent older women have been from media representation. It can almost feel as though ageing is a form of non-existence, a point at which one is expected to remove oneself from view and accept a kind of premature social death. The fear of ageing is a privilege, but the stigma of it is particularly strong for the female-identifying population. Trying to be an artist, your head is most of the time filled with doubt, and there is a need for positive role models. Hearing from these women, who have managed to succeed widely in this field while maintaining their own vision, reminds us that there is a way to grow older while continuing to create and remain visible without having to compromise who you are.

I’ve been buying some props for the Second Virgin project, like latex gloves with fake nails, nude full-body suits, and door viewers to film through. In general, my ordering history from the past few months might look quite suspicious :D When I work on a project, I always shop for the character or, more precisely, get into its mind and search from that perspective.

Other than that, I purchase almost everything second-hand. I love thrifting, antiques, and markets, even finding things on the street. There is something thrilling about discovering an object that has been thrown away, deemed useless, and giving it another purpose. It also comes with a previous story, one that I don’t know, which makes the object feel even more interesting to me.

From the books I have read recently, I would strongly recommend Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici and Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

I have already quoted Żuławski’s Possession quite a lot, so I’ll take this opportunity to mention some other films that have impressed me. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and The Cremator are two great, lesser-known films from the Czechoslovak New Wave. I also appreciate the documentary films of Michael Glawogger, particularly Workingman’s Death, and biographical films about artists’ lives, such as Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine and the 2006 documentary about Andy Warhol. Among more recent films, I enjoyed Dahomey by Mati Diop and feel that everyone should see this one.

Being obsessed with a project and wanting to work on it without stopping is not always a vice; however, balance is important, even in this. Going deeper takes time and cannot be rushed. Sometimes we see better once we manage to get some distance, and saying this is always a good reminder.